Please join us for “Self-Cultivation Steps in Early China” with visiting scholar Paul Fischer.

Self-cultivation (修身) was a pursuit addressed by a number of early Chinese “Masters” (子). Some of these authors articulated self-cultivation programs consisting of a number of steps leading toward the goal. This talk examines several such programs, assessing the rhetorical strategies used by these authors, and revealing instances of potential borrowing, as well as conceptual congruencies and contention. Because these authors largely shared the same cosmological and anthropological assumptions, despite spanning several centuries prior to Qin unification, it is not surprising that the components of their programs are similarly shared: the whole person (身), the body (形), the will (志), human inclinations (情) that were often emotional in nature, a human nature (性) that could be species- or person-specific, and ideas of fate and destiny (命). Most important, however, were the various iterations of the mind (心): introspective, emotional, perceptive, social (and socialized), and amenable to certain metaphysical or metaphorical influences, such as qi-substance (氣), essences (精), and spirit/ousness (神). Goals, too, while certainly varying, drew upon a common well of personal and social concerns: health, longevity, well-being, virtuosity, mental acuity, familial and social harmony, and right relations with the cosmos and its various inhabitants. This paper compares narratives from diverse ideological contexts and demonstrates both conceptual and teleological correlations as well as competing arguments relating to the aims and practices of self-cultivation.

Paul Fischer is currently an independent scholar and former professor of Asian religions and cultures at Western Kentucky University. He is the author of Self-Cultivation in Early China and translator and editor of Shizi: China’s First Syncretist and The Annotated Laozi: A New Translation of the Daodejing.